


she is tomorrow

by raewrites



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, Relationship Study, i've fallen into nishikimi and i can't get up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewrites/pseuds/raewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nishiki’s never thought of himself as only partial, perhaps wholly, physically contained by blood, skin, and bone on the exterior, but possessing a space empty, heartbeat echoing hollowly within an otherwise empty cavity; filled only after their destined encounter.</p>
<p>(By a <i>human</i> of all things.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	she is tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> this is the result of me taking all the nishikimi emotions bundled up and expelling them into writing 
> 
> dedicated to lily who both drowns and keeps me afloat with this damn ship
> 
> title derived from ['she is the sunlight'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58mboo4vrkQ>'she%20is%20the%20sunlight'</a>%20by%20trading%20yesterday,%20my%20go-to%20nishikimi%20song.) by trading yesterday.

Nishiki’s never thought of himself as ‘somebody’s’.   
  
He’s never thought of himself as half of a whole anything, never thought of himself as missing a part; functional in the meantime, but noticeably incomplete.   
  
(Patchwork, pieced together as he falls apart.)  
  
He’s never thought of himself as only partial, perhaps wholly, physically contained by blood, skin, and bone on the exterior, but possessing a space empty, heartbeat echoing hollowly within an otherwise empty cavity; filled only after their destined encounter.  
  
(By a  _human_ of all things.)  
  
Nishiki remembers when he first met Kimi, remembers her as pale-looking, eyes worn with sorrows barely contained, sunken with burdens undeserved, retracted within herself for lack of a better solution, a walking shell of something living only by biological standards.  
  
(Signaled by a slow, but present heartbeat; once detested by her, currently cherished by him.)  
  
Nishiki remembers witnessing the light slowly return to Kimi’s eyes, flickering into existence over coffee dates; flickering like the smiles she began to share more frequently, smiles Nishiki sometimes found himself returning, unintentional at first, but startlingly genuine from first to last.  
  
Nishiki remembers watching her sunken face fill out once more, pretty rather than plain, alive rather than simply existing. The gentleness and warmth so characteristic of her today returning steadily like new growth from the ashes of forests burned to the ground; reminding him of pasts that leave scars rather than gaping wounds. Of healing through touch and hushed words spoken from hearts, conveyed through mouths. Of tomorrows yet to come.  
  
(Of futures; _precious_ futures, if names can act in the place of promises.)  
  
 _“You saved me.”_ She had said later, shoulder bare, silhouetted against the light from the doorway, his head cradled beneath her giving hands.  
  
(Words spoken by her, unleashed like a burden vanquished from her shoulders; words building their own truth within the blurred frenzy of his hunger as teeth sink into her flesh.)  
   
Nishiki remembers when he thought of Kimi as something that could be of some use, primitive intentions eventually warping into realities far-exceeding, realities stitched together by the brush of her fingertips on his cheeks, the curves of her body against him, holding on with enough to keep him afloat with long-sought meaning and a will to go on.  
  
(A will to live, to witness a tomorrow, one he used to see as so far away; one that now promises its eventual presence in the form of Kimi herself, moonlight casting shadows against her skin as she lies beside him.)  
  
“You’re staring, Nishiki.” She whispers, smile coy even with sleep hanging so prominently from her features, eyelids drooping at half-gaze, the fingers she had been curling in his hair falling to the arch of his cheekbones, knuckles grazing down the length of his jaw before eventually settling, tracing absent circles against the ridge of his collarbone, “What are you staring at?”  
  
“What does it look like I’m staring at?” He replies, tone even, but lacking bite. He doesn’t realize he’s whispering until he hears the distant rumble of thunder outside their window, soft words drowned out with the sound.   
  
Kimi hums, acknowledging without prying, understanding without seeking, letting the truth behind his words make themselves known in the way he leans forward to brush her hair away from her forehead, pressing his lips there, an answer in itself; a confession he’s only spoken aloud when he knows she’s asleep, curled into him; reciprocation in the form of vulnerability given to what society acknowledges as a monster in need of eradication.   
  
(Reciprocation in the form of faith, unmasked and unwavering.)  
  
As Kimi drifts to sleep in his arms, Nishiki reaches a hand down to gently pry apart the fingers pressed against his chest, intertwining them with his own, finding security in the way her fingers subconsciously curl into his, a content sigh escaping between lax lips pulled into the gentlest of smiles.   
  
A smile that lingers behind his own eyelids as they flutter closed, her heartbeat a lullaby; each beat a reassurance.   
  
(Returned faith manifesting in the hope that he’ll wake to see it again.  
  
Tomorrow.)


End file.
